Metaneeds

Self-actualizing people are said not to be motivated by basic needs, which in their case are already satisfied, but to be metamotivated by metaneeds or B-values. These metaneeds, being common to the individual and what is outside the individual, contribute to the breaking down of the distinction between the self and the not-self, and therefore to self-transcendence.

The intrinsic values to which a self-actualized person responds are said to be necessary not only to achieve fullest humanness but also to avoid illness, or "diminution of humanness". Examples are truth, goodness, justice, order. Their absence leads to such symptoms as alienation, apathy, despair, insecurity, and so on.